


Find River Song and Tell Her...

by GrumpyJenn



Series: Friends Through Time and Space [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Brainwashing, Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of Let's Kill Hitler and flash back from River/Mels POV</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find River Song and Tell Her...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TygerTyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TygerTyger/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Ladder Theory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/358281) by [TygerTyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TygerTyger/pseuds/TygerTyger). 



Mels looked down her new body at the Time Lord lying prone at her feet. She had killed him, had done what she’d been programmed to do her whole life.

She should have felt triumphant.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

She’d known they were her parents. She’d always known. Even when she was a little girl, little Melody alone in the suit, even then she’d known. It had taken her a long time to get over Amy shooting at her. She’d _known_ , of course, that Amy hadn’t known who she was, but she hadn’t really _understood_. Of course, at that point in Amy’s life she and Rory weren’t really parents yet, and Mels wasn’t sure if that had been the real Amy or the Flesh Amy, the one who’d shot at her in Florida, and she didn’t really want to know.

Even having her own mother shoot at her had been better than the orphanage. Melody had spent her time in the orphanage being trained as a deadly weapon, a weapon against one man, the Doctor. She didn’t remember much of the training - by the Silents - consciously, which was probably just as well. That’s why she had to get out, to escape. The Silents... they... no, she couldn’t remember, she _would not_ remember... _(tick tock goes the clock)._.. she had to forget the Silents and the Silence and _her_ , that awful woman, the Eyepatch Lady. Little Melody spent most of her time terrified, and the Silents’ natural ability to _make_ her forget was welcome.

After she escaped, she lived on the streets for six months before she died of starvation and exposure. She hoped she hadn’t frightened that vagrant too badly when she regenerated in front of his eyes. It had taken her years to find her way to Leadworth where her parents lived, and they were all children at the time. Poor Rory, so meek and sweet and kind of clueless and completely in love with Amy. And once Amy’d transferred her crush on the Raggedy Doctor to Rory (after _that_ penny had finally dropped, thanks to Mels herself), after all that Mels had had a bit of a crush on the Doctor herself. And now it was kind of safe to crush on him, because she’d escaped the Silence and the Eyepatch Lady... _(and what now shall we play...)..._ back in New York City.

Mels spent a lot of time with Amy and Rory, of course; she wanted to know them better. They were her _parents_ , and the foster families she lived with - she kept getting shuffled to other families because she was a _troublemaker_ \- they were okay... but they weren’t her _real_ family... Rory and Amy were, even if they didn’t know it, and she wondered what would happen if they didn’t get together in the end; would she pop like a soap bubble? She did spend a lot of time with them, but she also spent a lot of time at home - wherever home was that month - because there were always things she had to do for the foster families she lived with. These things were so boring that she usually didn’t even remember them after she did them; she decided she must just zone out... _(tick tock goes the clock...)_... until she had something more fun to do. Like get in trouble at school, or hang about with Amy and Rory, or... well, lots of things really.

If she was honest with herself - which she was, at least more often than with others - she’d admit that she’d been crushing on Amy’s Raggedy Doctor for _years_... but it seemed like betraying Amy until Amy transferred her affections to Rory. Such fantasies Mels’d had about the Doctor! She knew from Amy that he was clever, and funny, and raggedy, and Mels - who was a _bad_ girl in may ways - had spent many nights where her foster parents couldn’t find her in Leadworth or even as far away as Gloucester, snogging and sometimes shagging various boys, but dreaming of the Doctor. There was a reason she’d been shuffled from home to home in The System, and it wasn’t because she was a good girl. It was because when she wasn’t getting into fights or detention in school, she was “wild and uncontrollable”.  Except when she was with Amy and Rory, who the parents in The System considered a good influence on her. Mels got a secret little thrill out of her actual parents raising her without their knowledge.

And then Amy’s Raggedy Doctor came back, and Mels was alone much of the time... _(now summer’s gone away...)..._ Rory was working as a nurse, and all that weird stuff had happened, and Amy went off with the Doctor to have adventures. And then Rory left too for a bit and then everyone came back and Amy and Rory got married. She hadn’t been there, at the wedding, she’d felt strange about going, and decided she just didn’t do weddings. Mels wondered if the Doctor was there, but... no, no she couldn’t go to their wedding, it was too weird, a daft idea. So she skipped it, and convinced herself that it was just because she didn’t _want_ to go, of course it was.

And she’d believed it, until there they were, in Hitler’s office in 1938 and she’d been shot and was dying. _Of course I am,_ she thought fuzzily, _I finally get a chance to go on an adventure with the Doctor and I die on the first stop_. And then everything happened very fast. He promised to marry her if only she’d get well, and she told him to ask her parents and he promised he would first chance he got, and then the penny was in the air again, the bright copper penny, spinning and flashing, and then it dropped and the Doctor shouted at her parents to get back.

And she changed. Into this fabulous body with amazing hair that didn’t stop.

And she killed him. _Her_ Doctor, who she’d loved and hated and feared.

Mels looked down her new body at the Time Lord lying prone at her feet. She had killed him, had done what she’d been programmed to do her whole life.

She should have felt triumphant.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

 **“** Find her. Find River Song and tell her something for me.” He was getting weaker. But he had asked for _her_ , and she couldn’t help herself. He’d... he’d sounded like he meant it when he said he’d marry her if only she’d live. It seemed like so long ago. She felt her new body choke up with emotion, and she spoke softly, kneeling over his body.

 **“** Tell her what?”

His voice was very faint now, and Mels was afraid she would cry. She never cried. “Tell her I ...ve her...”

 _Did he say forgive?_ she thought wildly, _Or love? Oh, it doesn’t matter._ “Well, I'm sure she knows...” she said, a catch in her voice, smiling down at him a little.

And then he died.

She _should_ have felt triumphant. But all she felt was... lost. Even as she’d killed him he’d defended her against that robot thing, as though he cared, as though he was _Amy’s_ Raggedy Doctor, not the Doctor who was the bogeyman for the Silence. He seemed... she was so _confused_... She looked at Amy and spoke, “Who’s River Song?”

And Amy showed her. Amy made the robot turn into River Song, and River Song was _her_ , was Mels, and _he_ had said he...

Mels - no, _not_ Mels, _River_... River asked, “Just tell me. The Doctor. Is he worth it?”

“Yes! Yes he is!” And M-- River nodded and moved toward the Doctor, hands glowing, and knelt over him again, reaching out, and he opened his eyes.

“River. No... What are you doing...?”

And she smiled at him as the glow intensified. “Hello, Sweetie,” she said, and kissed him.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing Mels is hard. There's not so much canon out there that one has a good guide, but just enough to restrict one from going too far afield. But TygerTyger inspired me, so here we go...
> 
> There may be more; I haven't decided yet


End file.
